Washington -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- It was one of those behind-the-scenes moments that a reporter covering the Tea Party rarely gets to witness .

About 1:35 a.m. Thursday , a man ran up to a Tea Party Express bus , approaching from the left , waving his arms and shouting something that none of us on the bus could understand .

I was sitting in the `` sidekick seat , '' a leather perch near the driver with a clear view .

The three-bus caravan had just rolled into Washington , hours ahead of the final rally of the `` Just Vote them Out '' tour -- the movement 's third national event since coming together a little over a year ago . The bus I was on carried about 14 weary travelers : Tea Party leaders and activists , journalists and Casey the dog , a small girl with floppy ears belonging to Tea Party Express Chairman Mark Williams .

We had just arrived after a grueling trip from Boston , Massachusetts , where Sarah Palin rallied a crowd of thousands on Boston Common , and were blocks away from our destination .

The bus was hard to miss , wrapped full-on in a Tea Party advertisement . Apparently , just the sight of it made the man angry . As he rushed us , shouting all the way , the bus driver cautiously slid open his window .

`` This country is at war , '' the man screamed into the slightly opened window . The driver quickly slammed it shut .

No one on the bus , including me , could understand what point the man was trying to make . The activists dismissed him as a drunk . But one thing was very clear : The Tea Party had once again attracted attention from one of its many critics .

In fact , the Tea Party movement has earned plenty of detractors as it has traveled cross-country labeling President Obama a `` socialist '' and blasting what it says is big government run amok , while invoking the Constitution 's sanctity .

Agitators have thrown eggs at the buses . Ray March , one of the drivers , told me that a semi-truck driver tried to run his bus off the road . Now there was a late-night ranting as the conservative activists rolled into the nation 's reliably liberal capital .

On the drive to Washington , the activists had aimed their ire at cable news channels , news sites or blogs they felt were biased against the Tea Party movement . They praised outlets they felt cast the movement in its right light . From what I saw , the bus ' TV system was tuned to one news outlet in particular . Hint : It was n't CNN .

As for creature comforts , space was a commodity .

Seating was at a premium . Virtually every seat was spoken for . Four bunk beds were loaded with stuff . One guy slept on the floor next to one of them , in the middle of the narrow walkway that attached the front of the bus to the back . Everyone stepped over him to get by .

Work spaces were virtually nonexistent , with laptops and BlackBerrys competing for space with kitsch and curling irons .

Hanging over the toilet in the cramped bathroom was a sign with a stern warning : `` Liquids only . '' Every once in awhile , a refrigerator would fly open -- spilling items out .

Still , despite the long trip , tempers never flared and pleasant conversation was not hard to find . The activists seemed to get along with each other and were accommodating to journalists .

I mostly sat in the front of the bus . But I also spent time in the back , working out of a cramped space with the other journalists embedded for the trip .

Crammed into a U-shaped area with a small desk slab , we all did our work : I wrote stories , an editor and reporter team from Los Angeles-based Pajamas TV did on-camera reports and a Fox News radio reporter did live spots . He scripted a line about Tea Partiers `` partying like it was 1773 '' in one of them , a reference to the year of the original Boston Tea Party . We all laughed at that one .

In the front of the bus , Casey was lounging comfortably .

The pooch sat on one of the leather bench sofas along the window for most of the trip . It was a nice spot , considering that our Boston to Washington trip , expected to take about 7 hours , actually took more than 10 hours . Multiple bathroom breaks and food stops had prolonged the trip .

At one point , as I was interviewing Williams , he mentioned Casey , put a laptop in front of her , and said she likes to blog from the bus .

@highlight

CNN 's Shannon Travis travels with Tea Party Express Thursday night

@highlight

Just the sight of the bus made one man mad , Travis says

@highlight

Despite long trip , tempers never flared and conversation was pleasant , Travis says